Our Mission

The Northwoods Land Trust (NWLT) promotes conservation by private landowners for natural shorelands, woodlands, wetlands and other natural resources, as public benefits for present and future generations in Vilas, Oneida, Forest, Florence, Iron and Price Counties and the surrounding region.

Volunteer Work Day

The Northwoods Land Trust worked with volunteers and local biologist, Eric Kroening on Tuesday, November 4 to remove invasive shrubs near the Holmboe Conifer Forest State Natural Area. The volunteers pulled and cut loads of honeysuckle and buckthorn that are invading from the neighboring property. Our goal is to keep these and other non-native species out of the State Natural Area and regularly push them back from the boundary to limit the amount of invasives within the Holmboe property. Special thanks to the volunteers who gave of their time and effort to help with this important work! Please call 715.479.2490 or email Trisha Moore at trisha@northwoodslandtrust.org to let us know if you would like to help with future invasive species removal projects.

U.S. House of Representatives votes to approve permanent Conservation Easement Incentive Act

In a bipartisan vote of 277-130, the House voted on July 17th to make the conservation easement tax incentive permanent! This is a huge step forward for land conservation and the land trust community. Our thanks to Representative Sean Duffy (Republican, Bayfield) for his vote and co-sponsorship of the conservation easement incentive act.

The enhanced incentives to encourage private landowners to donate conservation easements have been in place since 2006, but had to be renewed by Congress every two years. The enhanced provisions expired again at the end of 2013. Those incentives increased the ability of landowners to utilize their appraised charitable deduction values for a conservation easement donation. Where previously landowners could deduct up to 30% of their adjusted gross income in any one year, under the enhanced incentives they could deduct up to 50% of their AGI. The enhanced benefits also increase the carry-forward period for using the deduction from an additional 5 years to 15 years.

In our experience at the Northwoods Land Trust, these enhanced conservation easement benefits mattered the most to lower and moderate income landowners who could not use a large charitable deduction in any one year. Wealthier families would often be able to fully utilize their charitable deduction within the limits of the original provisions.

Besides the Land Trust Alliance representing the 1,200 land trusts across the country, groups including the American Farm Bureau Federation, Ducks Unlimited, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, National Wildlife Federation, National Audubon Society, National Rifle Association and National Farmers Union broadly support making the enhanced tax incentive for conservation easements permanent.

Now the bill passes to the Senate, which also has a large bipartisan majority of co-sponsors. We urge Wisconsin’s senators to also support passage of this important conservation tax incentive!

Annual Meeting included Crawling Stone Woods Dedication

The Northwoods Land Trust held its 2014 Annual Meeting on Friday, June 6 at the Lac du Flambeau Tribal Natural Resources Center. Following a light lunch where participants were able to meet the NWLT Board of Director.

Following the meeting we carpooled to take a short hike and dedicate the newly-acquired Crawling Stone Woods conservation property near the south shoreline of Crawling Stone Lake. This 42.4-acre property was gifted to the Northwoods Land Trust by Richard Galaty and George and Carol Schneider in December. Special thanks to George Schneider and Diane Galaty for taking the time to join us for the dedication!

The Northwoods Land Trust (NWLT) is a non-profit, tax-exempt conservation organization headquartered in Eagle River, Wisconsin. We work with property owners who care about their land so much that they want to see it protected long into the future. The Northwoods Land Trust is a Wisconsin Land Trust of the Year Award Recipient!

NWLT encourages and accepts conservation easements on property with natural or scenic resource values. After a voluntary land protection agreement (conservation easement) is granted, the land trust provides long-term stewardship of the protected land so the resource values are preserved in accordance with the landowner’s wishes.

Now more than ever, we need your participation to help protect our beautiful northwoods.